Two months after citizens engaged in anti-corruption protests over the deadly concrete canopy collapse that killed 15 people, the Serbian Prime Minister, Miloš Vučević has stepped down from his office in an attempt to calm pressure that rolled the nation.
Vučević’s resignation came just a day after President Aleksandar Vučić said “an urgent and extensive reconstruction of the government” was in the works in response to the demands posed by Serbia’s striking university students.
According to the prime minister, he was prompted to resign on Tuesday after seeing reports of yet another attack against protesting students in the northern city and regional capital of Novi Sad.
It was learnt that a 23-year-old woman was hospitalized and sustained varying degrees of injuries after being attacked by a group of unidentified assailants during the protest.
During a public address, Vučević said that “the government has to show the highest level of responsibility. To not raise tensions in the society any further, I made the decision I just announced”.
The prime minister, in the past, had managed to cushion the impact of Anti-Government street protests, but the current student movement has garnered widespread support from all walks of life, including actors, farmers, lawyers, and judges.
Serbia’s students are demanding accountability for the canopy collapse that critics have blamed on rampant government corruption.
Their call for justice has resonated in a country where corruption is widespread and few feel that the state institutions work in the interests of citizens.
On Monday, tens of thousands of people joined striking university students in a 24-hour blockade of a key traffic intersection in the Serbian capital. They are demanding accountability for the canopy collapse that critics have blamed on rampant government corruption.
Classes at Serbia’s universities and dozens of schools have been blocked for two months with students camping inside their faculty buildings.
Serbian farmers on tractors and thousands of citizens joined the blockade that followed weeks of protests demanding accountability for the deadly accident in Novi Sad that critics have blamed on rampant government corruption.
A professor at the Faculty of Chemistry in Belgrade, Branimir Jovancicevic, expressed hope that Vucevic’s resignation is a first step toward further political changes in Serbia, where power is concentrated in the hands of the president although his constitutional role is largely ceremonial.
“If the president thinks that replacing one, essentially, unimportant figure will solve the problem he is deeply mistaken. This must lead to total political changes because autocracy and dictatorship in Serbia, in the heart of Europe, must be stopped,” said Jovancicevic.
A campaign of street demonstrations has posed the biggest challenge in years to the Serbian Progressive Party (SNS) government’s firm grip on power in Serbia.
